My pet peeve: People who misuse the term McGuffin.
Too many to name.
McGuffins are specifically objects pursued by the characters which the audience doesn't care about because they have no significance to the plot or character arcs.
McGuffins are specifically objects pursued by the characters which the audience doesn't care about because they have no significance to the plot or character arcs.
The misuse is people pointing to things that are significant to plot or character arc.
Or even just defining the term to mean any old thing that a character desires. Here's an otherwise pretty good video that goes so far as to say that a McGuffin doesn't even have to be an object; it can be an idea, person, or goal:
Consider the Infinity Stones in either INFINITY WAR or ENDGAME. Do a Google search and find a gazillion references to them as McGuffins.
But they're not McGuffins. What the Infinity Stones are and what they can do is incredibly integral to the plot.
But they're not McGuffins. What the Infinity Stones are and what they can do is incredibly integral to the plot.
The telltale for a true McGuffin is that you can swap it out for something with substantially different properties and the only thing that changes is the name of the McGuffin in the dialogue; like a reverse game of ad libs.
True McGuffins are virtually interchangeable: Put the Maltese Falcon in Pulp Fiction. Put the Pulp Fiction briefcase in Mission Impossible. Put the NOC List in Mission Impossible 3. Put the Rabbit's Foot in Maltese Falcon.
This can be somewhat deceptive because it's not transitive. You can take non-McGuffins and plug them in as McGuffins, but not vice versa. You can take the Death Star plans from STAR WARS and, ignoring genre oddities, plug them into Pulp Fiction, Mission Impossible, etc.
But you can't take the NOC list and plug it in for the Death Star plans, because the NOC list won't reveal the secret vulnerability of the Death Star that is the premise for the finale of the film.
Similarly, Rosebud from CITIZEN KANE: Not a McGuffin. While you could swap it out for some other toy that Kane was playing with when his parents signed him into fosterage, the key thing is that it HAS TO BE SUCH AN OBJECT. It must have that specific property for the film to work.
